


At the End of Me (I Still Remain)

by Saremina



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: A bit heavy on the psychological at times, M/M, Maybe not a happy ending exactly, Natasha makes an appearance too, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Recovery, Suicidal Thoughts, and so does Sam, at least on the dissociation, but it's hopeful and not totally sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-16 22:51:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2287394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saremina/pseuds/Saremina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't know if he is real anymore. Sometimes he thinks he'd like to be.</p><p>-</p><p>Title is (sort of) from the song Beauty from Pain by Superchick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the End of Me (I Still Remain)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit funny because I started writing with no intention of putting down more than a few words completely unrelated to any fic, but then it got out of hand and this happened. This is basically a slightly edited stream of thought fic :)
> 
> I've never written for this fandom before, I wasn't really intending on starting at the moment but hey, who am I to fight a muse when one decides to drop by.
> 
> A word of warning, this isn't very happy, but recovery rarely is very happy.
> 
> And if you think I should tag for something else let me know, okay? Thanks!

Everything is wrong and nothing seems real anymore. The world has changed and he doesn’t recognize himself. Nothing is real, he’s just sleeping in his frozen prison again. It’s easier to handle if everything is just a part of his imagination, a dream he made up. It’s not though, and he knows it, but nothing seems real. He is not real. Right? He has a past, he knows what he was, before he died for the first time and after it. It’s two different beings inside his head. They’re the same person. They are him. But it’s not right. His past is not his. It didn’t happen to him. He does not exist.

 

_So why am I here?_

 

He doesn’t move or talk, doesn’t think it’s worth the punishment. He’s trapped in a mind that is not his. It is his, these are his memories. He remembers standing on a dark road and the car that nearly hit him, he can still see the car crashing after the driver pulls too hard to the right to avoid crashing into him. He can still feel his body moving when he goes to make sure the people in the car are dead. He remembers looking in the eyes of a man he used to know. It wasn’t him.

 

_It was me. I wasn’t there._

 

He was there, but it all happened to somebody else. It happened to him. Why does it feel like his memories belong to somebody else? Does that mean he doesn’t exist? Is he dead? He doesn’t feel like he is alive. He has memories that are not his, a body that does not feel like it belongs to him. He must be dead.

 

_I can’t feel anything._

 

He lives in a bubble and the world exists outside of it. His mind is clouded with too heavy fog and he can’t get through it. He wants to feel like he exists again. He doesn’t feel like he does even when he tries. Yet he keeps breathing. People keep noticing him. He seems to exists, so why can’t he feel it? He can move his arms or talk but it doesn’t feel like it’s him _._ It’s somebody else and he’s just watching it all happen.

 

_Am I real?_

 

He can’t sleep. He’s tired but he can’t fall asleep. He’s terrified of his dreams but too often being awake is even worse, he doesn’t know who to trust and everything could be a danger to him. He hates it. He needs to stay awake to be safe, he needs to sleep so that he stays alert enough to be able to protect himself. Too aware of everything and nothing seems real. He can hear Steve turn on his own bed in the room next to his, and it’s too close. Not close enough. He wants to run and never stop. He wants to crawl to Steve’s bed and cling to him and never let go.

 

_Steve._

 

Steve sees a friend when he looks at him. He smiles and hides his broken heart and tries to be happy. They used to be friends. Steve says he was his friend a long time ago. But Steve’s friend is dead. The man Steve sees is not there anymore. Steve is still good to him.Steve calls him Bucky and says it’s his name and he’s safe. Steve won’t let anybody hurt him ever again. He wants to believe Steve.

 

_Bucky._

 

He doesn’t feel like Bucky. He rarely responds to it, acknowledges it only when he’s not too lost in his own head. He’s not Bucky, but he is. He knows that name, he can remember the way Steve used to say it before. He remembers feeling like the name belonged to him. It doesn’t belong to him anymore, it belonged to Bucky and he’s dead now. He had to die so that the Winter Soldier could come and take his place and kill for the people who made him an object.

 

_They called me an asset._

 

He wasn’t that anymore either. That was someone else, like Bucky was someone else. He hadn’t done the things the Winter Soldier had done. But he had. He is the Winter Soldier. Except it doesn’t feel right, the same way Bucky doesn’t feel right, and how could he be someone who doesn’t feel like him at all? The Winter Soldier came after Bucky and sometimes he thinks he came after the Winter Soldier. None of them are the same person. But the Winter Soldier is Bucky and Bucky is the Winter Soldier. They are the same person. They are nothing alike. They cannot be separated from one another.

 

_Why can’t they be separated if I can?_

 

He wishes he could erase The Winter Soldier and just be Bucky again. He doesn’t want to be Bucky, it’d be easier to be the Winter Soldier and not think or feel ever again. But Steve smiles and there is desperation in his eyes and he keeps saying it’s okay, everything would be okay and Steve would never leave him. Steve keeps saying he doesn’t have to be like he was before, as long as he’s safe and happy.

 

_What does happiness feel like?_

 

He has a vague memory of happiness that belongs to someone else. He remembers being wrapped around Steve and stealing the breath straight from his lips and Steve pulling him closer. Always closer until they couldn’t tell each other apart and even that wasn’t close enough. Burying himself in Steve wasn’t close enough, there was alway _something_ between them, keeping them apart.

 

_Was that happiness?_

 

They’re not his memories but he wants them to be. Does Steve have those memories? Maybe that’s what was wrong in his memories, that feeling of separation, maybe he just imagined the whole thing. But then Steve looks at him and there’s something he can’t identify in his eyes but he wants it, and maybe he should run away.

 

_I’m not supposed to want things._

 

He doesn’t do anything that’s not asked of him. Doing things and wanting always lead to pain. But that wasn’t him, that was the Winter Soldier. Maybe he can do something, maybe he can want things. Bucky had done and wanted things and he hadn’t been punished for it. But he isn’t Bucky either. Steve tells him he can ask for things. Steve wants him to want things. Steve wants him to do things because he feels like doing them.

 

_I can’t breathe._

 

Steve always tries to help him when it hits. Sam calls them panic attacks, says they are completely normal and there is nothing wrong with with him for having them, so why does it feel like he’s dying? How can he be dying if he doesn’t even exist? Is that even possible? Steve thinks he’s real, keeps telling him he’s human and not some asset to be taken out when he’s needed. Steve helps him breathe again.

 

_Maybe I am real._

 

It’s a weird thought to have but Steve keeps calling him Bucky and talking to him even when he doesn’t answer, and then Sam made him pancakes when he came to visit. They were for him and Steve asked him if he could have some, waited for an answer and thanked him for sharing. It made him feel less dead. For a moment he felt.

 

_Why don’t they hate me?_

 

He hates himself. He can barely stand the arm They gave him. He can’t look into a mirror, doesn’t want any pictures of himself around Steve’s home. Steve says he understands and removes all pictures and mirrors from his home, except for the one in the bathroom because it’s bolted to the wall, but that one isn’t hard to avoid. He lets Steve shave his face when he wants because he can’t do it himself without a mirror, and Steve acts like it’s completely normal. Steve says he could never hate him, and Sam calls him a friend and is always kind. He tried to kill them and they don’t hate him. He thinks they should hate him.

 

_I let them use me._

 

He should have stopped the Winter Soldier but he didn’t, and he hates himself for it. He should have stopped himself. He should have done something, but he had allowed the pain to continue, he had allowed Them to use the Winter Soldier. He had let Them murder Bucky and do what ever they wanted with the body. He had let Them torture the Winter Soldier who took Bucky’s place in the empty shell that was left after They were done with it. But Bucky was the Winter Soldier, he hadn’t died. He had been ripped into thousands of tiny pieces and put back together all wrong. Maybe if he were to rearrange those pieces into something that made sense again. He didn’t think he could ever do that.

 

_I don’t want to live like this._

 

Sometimes he wished he had died when he fell. Most of the time he feels like he did. He doesn’t want to be here anymore. Sometimes he doesn’t leave his bed for days. He stares at the wall without seeing it more often than not. He’s never hungry. Why does he keep breathing? He knows Steve cries when he gets those days he hopes death would come for him because he doesn’t have it in him to go to it. When Steve doesn’t know what to do he calls Sam, and Sam asks him about what is going on in his head. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t really know what to say even if he had the energy to open his mouth and talk. Sam doesn’t mind, he smiles and says that it’s okay. It’s okay if he feels like there’s nothing in the world worth living for, but just because it’s bad right now doesn’t mean it’ll always be like that. He needs to take it one day at a time and remember there are people who care about him.

 

_Maybe this is the darkness before the dawn._

 

The night is darkest right before the dawn. Isn’t that what people always say? Sam tells him that recovering from trauma isn’t linear and it’s normal to have periods where he feels like he’s back at the point he started from. He doesn’t feel like he’s at the beginning, at least back then he couldn’t feel anything. He wasn’t real. Not feeling was better than the echo of feelings he has now, not being real was better than the slow realization that he existed, at least on some level. In the beginning he didn’t feel like he had it in him to die again.

 

_I don’t want Steve to hurt._

 

He could see Steve slowly dying inside. He had to do something about it. Bucky would never let Steve to hurt like this. The Winter Soldier didn’t have it in him to care. But they were the same person and maybe he was too. Maybe he could take making Steve happier as his new mission. He asks Steve if there was something on his list they could watch. Steve doesn’t look like he’s dying when he says yes. It makes him feel warm. After years of cold it seems strange but he thinks he could get used to it.

 

_Steve likes it when I talk to him._

 

Steve becomes happier after he starts talking without being talked to first. It doesn’t take much, a word or a sentence here and there, but it makes Steve happy, and seeing Steve happy is a good thing. He didn’t think he had it in him to bring anything but hurt and pain to the world, but he is making Steve happy. Why does he feel like he’s choking up?

 

_I don’t want Them to win._

 

Natasha says giving up would be like letting Them win. The people who built the Winter Soldier out of the shattered pieces of Bucky. He knows Natasha is trying to give him a reason to go on. She says living a good life is the best revenge he can have, that he should deny Them the satisfaction of having power over his life even after he has escaped Them. He remembers hunting Them down and killing Them, he was still the Winter Soldier. Except he wasn’t the Winter Soldier, because the Winter Soldier didn’t make choices, he didn’t get angry and hurt and take it out on Them. Maybe that had been him. Maybe he had been the Winter Soldier all along. He wants his life back.

 

_This is not darkness._

 

Sam teaches him to knit, he says it’s a way to keep busy. He doesn’t see the point of it at first, but it calms him down and keeps him occupied and he starts to relax. He remembers how cold Steve used to get in the winter so he makes him scarves, mittens, a beanie and socks. Steve thanks him and smiles and his eyes are wet. Why are his eyes so wet? When he asks Steve about it Steve says he doesn’t remember the last time he was this happy. Steve hugs him and he doesn’t want Steve to ever let him go.

 

_Maybe I can be whole again._

 

He doesn’t really know who he is anymore, but he knows Steve and he thinks he might even love him a little. Sometimes he wants to go back to what they had in the past, when he was still Bucky, but it doesn’t seem right when he doesn’t even know who he is. He’s learned to respond to Bucky, but it’s not his name, it’s something he is called, like the Winter Soldier and the Asset before Steve saved him. But sometimes he feels like he is his own person, sometimes he can accept that both Bucky and the Winter Soldier are part of him, and even if he hates himself for the things he has done he has to move forward. He can’t let Them win. He wants to have a life that is his. He wants Steve back. He wants to know who he is in this new world.

 

_He loves me._

 

He asks Steve if he remembers the way they used to be. If he has the same memories of desperate kisses and losing themselves in each other in the dark of the night. Steve stays quiet for a little too long and doesn’t look at him even when he says yes. Steve looks like he wants to shrink back to his original size and hide away. Was this something that wasn’t supposed to be brought up? For the first time in a long time he fears Steve might abandon him or hurt him in some way, but Steve turns to face him and says he loved him and he’s sorry he never said it. Steve says he still loves him and nothing will ever change that. Steve says he could have been the Winter Soldier for the rest of his life and Steve would’ve loved him. He feels like crying. He wants to tell Steve he thinks he might love him too. He doesn’t say anything.

 

_The world has changed._

 

He doesn’t like going outside much, but he feels like he’s going crazy if he stays inside for any longer so Steve and Sam come with him for a long walk on one early morning. It’s different from his memories, because maybe he doesn’t feel like Bucky but the memories are his, and the world is different. It’s a strange difference, everything is the same, there are cars and bikes and motorcycles, a man is walking a dog and he sees a cat trying to catch a bird, but everything looks different. Steve says it was the hardest thing to adjust to, that the familiarity in the strangeness still keeps reminding him of how things used to be. There are two girls standing in a street corner and they share a kiss without any fear of being seen. Maybe he’ll like it here after all.

 

_It is my life._

 

He stops paying so much attention to his metal arm, it is a part of him and it makes his life easier, he doesn’t have to like it. He’s good at knitting and he can go outside without feeling like the world is closing in on him the second he steps out if the door. Steve doesn’t look like he’s dying inside anymore. Most of the time he doesn’t feel like dying either. He wants to live. Steve lets him use the internet to catch up on things when he gets bored and brings him books from the library so that he has something concrete in his hands when he reads. He feels alive and he doesn’t want to give that up ever again.

 

_I have a name._

 

He’ll never be the same he was before, he’ll never be the Bucky Steve knew or the Winter Soldier again, but he knows who he is, who he chooses to be in this new world with Steve by his side. He realizes he has a name again when Steve calls him Bucky and it feels like him again. Not in the same way it had felt in the past but it feels like his name. It feels right in a way not many things feel anymore. He knows who he is again and he smiles at Steve, and Steve smiles at him and he wants to kiss Steve. He starts crying instead.

 

_I love him._

 

He tells Steve he loves him too when Steve is making breakfast one morning. Steve drops his spatula and the surprised look on his face makes Bucky laugh. Steve laughs too and throws a piece of bacon at Bucky. There is rarely any distance between them after that. Steve lies on top of Bucky when they watch the television, Bucky lets his foot press against Steve’s when they sit at the table. Bucky starts sleeping better after he asks Steve if he could sleep in his bed. Steve’s nightmares ease up as well. He is not who he was, but he doesn’t completely hate the person he is becoming. He can look at a picture of himself and not want to destroy it. He puts the mirror from the hallway back on the wall and doesn’t actively avoid it anymore.

 

_I can be happy again._

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was kinda loosely written as an exorcise my psychiatrist told me to do, since I tend to dissociate pretty badly when my mental health takes a turn for the worse. For me it's just easier when I'm not writing about myself so I wrote about Bucky and I think it turned out okay-ish.
> 
> I might write a companion from Steve's POV that'll be more like a normal fic. I dunno yet, I kinda have these scenes in my head that I want to put down but we'll see...
> 
> But let me know what you think and come bother me on [Tumblr](http://saremina.tumblr.com).


End file.
